Mahaveer Meri Drishti Mein #17

There has been a notion that one who is nonviolent—perfectly nonviolent—should have no opponents. For why should anyone’s hatred, violence, or enmity arise toward someone in whose mind there is no malice, no opposition, no hatred, no violence?

From the surface this seems very straightforward and clear. But life is more complex, and life is never as simple as our neat principles. The truth is that a perfectly nonviolent person is more likely to have opponents than a violent person. There are reasons for this.

The first reason is that we are all violent, so we easily come into tune with the violent. Because we are violent, we find rapport with a violent person. A nonviolent person is utterly alien among us—so alien that it is difficult even to tolerate him. And there are many reasons for this intolerance.

First, in the presence of a nonviolent person, we begin to appear so condemned, so wretched and poor, so petty and low, that we cannot live with that condemnation without taking revenge. We will take that revenge.

Thus a perfectly nonviolent person, unknowingly, arouses an intense urge for revenge in the minds of violent people. He does not create it; it arises because of our violence. For someone like Mahavira it is inevitable that he will encounter hundreds of thousands of opponents. But this does not cast doubt on his nonviolence. If anything, it reduces doubt; it conveys that the man was so alien, such a stranger, that we could not accept him. Rejection was bound to be the first response.

And even when we do accept him, we will not allow him to remain a man; we will make him a god, and then accept him! That too is a subtle device of rejection. To turn a man into a god is a refined way of dismissing him. Having made him a god, we can say, “We are only human; we will live and behave as humans do. He was a god—what has that to do with us?” We can worship him, certainly; but since he was not even a man, what concern can men have with him now!

First we reject, slander, and oppose. Then, when we find no way out—and we find no way out because if even a nonviolent person were to descend into violence, our language and his would become one, and then we would have a way; but if he stands firm in his nonviolence and our violence cannot make the slightest difference to him—then we have no way. Defeated, tired, vanquished, we make him a god! This is the second device, the last one, by which we push him outside the human race. Then we need not bother about him; then we can be at ease.

The second point to understand is this: however loudly I speak, however much love there is in my speaking, however great my voice and strength—if someone is deaf, my voice will not reach him. That is to say, when I speak there are two things: my speaking and your hearing.

If the sound does not reach the deaf, it cannot be said that I was mute. You cannot doubt that I spoke simply because the deaf did not hear; you cannot say I must not have spoken, otherwise the deaf would have heard.

Therefore, there can be no doubt about Mahavira’s nonviolence simply because his voice did not reach violent minds. People are deaf—very, very deaf, deep within. We neither listen, nor feel, nor see.

Certainly, love helps in explaining, and total love creates the whole possibility of making someone understand. But even this does not prove that a person of total love will necessarily succeed, because on the other side there may be total hatred, unwilling to understand. On the other side there may be complete deafness, unwilling to listen. So there can be no doubt about Mahavira’s love or his nonviolence merely because he is not able to make another understand, or to change him, or to erase another’s violence. There can be a thousand reasons for that.

If one wishes to examine Mahavira’s nonviolence, it is wrong to examine it from the other’s side; it is proper to look directly at Mahavira himself. If you want to examine the sun, it is wrong to make a blind man the medium of your test. We go to a blind man and ask, “Is there a sun?” and he says, “No.” Then shall we say, “What kind of sun is this that even a blind man cannot see it?”

If someone goes to test the sun through a blind man, it will be a great injustice to the sun. If the sun is to be examined, do it directly! To take an intermediary in between is dangerous, because then the examination becomes incomplete and the intermediary becomes important. If the intermediary has eyes, the sun will be there; if his eyes are weak and dim, the sun’s light will appear dim; if he is blind, the sun will not appear at all. It is essential to see directly.

It is necessary to look at Mahavira directly; then we can recognize whether his nonviolence, his love, is total or not. But many times our own eyes are so weak that it becomes difficult to look at the sun directly. Then we look indirectly; we ask someone else. We do not have even the strength to look straight into the face of the sun, so we go to gather reports from others.

And that is why, concerning people like Mahavira, Krishna, or Christ, we avoid looking directly. There too the light manifests in great majesty; there too ordinary, weak eyes close and cannot see. Therefore we search for intermediaries—gurus, teachers, annotators, commentators—and we want to see through them! We do not want to look at the Gita directly; we prefer to see it through a commentator. In this way we try to avoid lifting our eyes directly.

But in this world nothing can be seen through someone else’s eyes. Rather than seeing through another’s eyes, it is better not to see at all. To accept “I have not seen; I have been deprived of the vision”—that too would be appropriate, would be true. And perhaps that pain of not having seen will grip the mind, and the search to see may begin. But do not look through another’s eyes.

Yet we have always looked through others’ eyes, and that creates difficulty. See Mahavira directly and he is the full embodiment of love. See directly and perhaps there has never been a person as nonviolent as he.

A great mistake has been made here too. First, understand this: truth, nonviolence, celibacy, non-possession, non-stealing—these are not principles. Therefore, to ask for their direct practice is itself a mistake. They cannot be practiced directly.

It is like someone wanting to gather straw: he must sow wheat in the field, not straw. And if some madman were to sow straw in order to produce straw, even the straw he had would rot in the soil and nothing would grow. Because straw is a by-product; it comes with wheat. When wheat grows, straw comes with it; if wheat does not grow, there is no way to grow only straw. Yes, when wheat grows, straw inevitably appears; it needs no separate attention.

Nonviolence, non-possession, non-stealing—these are not principles; they are by-products, secondary offshoots. Wherever samadhi happens, these all arise on their own like straw. Anyone who sets out to produce them directly is trying to grow straw from straw. The straw we put into the field will rot, and no wheat will grow either.

Often we make this mistake: because wheat and straw appear together, we imagine that if sowing wheat brings straw, then sowing straw will bring wheat. Not so. They do appear together to the eye, but straw is secondary, wheat primary. When wheat arrives, straw arrives as its shadow.

Nonviolence, truth—these come as shadows in the experience of samadhi. Samadhi comes first; meditation comes first. When meditation happens, these follow like a shadow. But we do not see meditation!

Even in a field, the wheat is hidden in the straw; the eye notices the straw first. Straw arrives later but appears first. Remove the straw, and the wheat is revealed. In reality, wheat comes first; straw is just the protective wrapping around it.

Samadhi happens first, but it does not appear first to our eyes. When you go to Mahavira, you will see truth, nonviolence, non-stealing; you will not see samadhi. Those are the straw encasing samadhi from all sides. But samadhi has come first; the rest has followed like a shadow. We, however, see the outer first, and so we get into trouble. Seeing nonviolence first, we conclude: practice nonviolence, practice truth, practice non-stealing; do not steal; practice celibacy, drop sex. And we rush into that pursuit—we start sowing straw. What shows is not first; what does not show is first. The invisible inner happening is primary.

Mahavira is not practicing nonviolence. For what can one do who “practices” nonviolence? At most he will suppress violence. And suppression never makes one nonviolent. Even if such a person manages to act nonviolent, the signs of violence will lurk in his nonviolence; it will carry the tone of pressure, of force.

If someone blocks sex and “practices” celibacy, then within that celibacy unchastity and lust will sit. Celibacy will be the outer shell; inside, the libertine will stand. This is a great reversal.

With Mahavira, within is samadhi; without is celibacy. If you practice celibacy, there will be celibacy on the surface and sex within; samadhi will not be within. You will miss—utterly miss. What was to happen will never happen, and you will end up in an inverted state.

Therefore my emphasis is: if you want to understand a being like Mahavira, do not try to understand from the outside in; understand from the inside out. Only then will you understand; otherwise, you will go astray.

So I do not call these “principles.” They are not worth a penny next to samadhi. They have only the value that straw has. Straw has its value, and so do these—but in comparison to samadhi, they have none.

Mahavira’s attainment is samadhi. The by-products of that attainment are truth, nonviolence, non-possession, celibacy. They are not principles, and there is no need to practice them directly; in fact, no one can practice them directly, nor has anyone ever succeeded in doing so. Many have tried—and only ended in failure, distortion, perversion—and never reached truth.

So do not even ask what their practical form is. They have no practical form. Practice belongs to meditation. Practice meditation; these will come as shadows. If I invite you, I do not ask you to bring your shadow along. “Today your shadow also has an invitation; let it come.” You would say, “What are you saying? If I come, my shadow will come.” There is no need to invite it separately; it comes of itself with your coming.

But the reverse is impossible: I cannot bring your shadow and expect you to arrive with it. First, I cannot bring your shadow at all; and even if I manage some deception, you will not come with it.

Therefore, do not practice nonviolence; practice meditation. Nonviolence flowers as a result, as a natural culmination. When meditation happens, a person ceases to be violent. This is a fundamental difference. With meditation, nonviolence is not practiced; violence disappears. Nothing remains to be suppressed.

Understand also: nonviolence is not the opposite of violence; it is the absence of violence. But we see it upside down because violence is what we know within, and we “practice” nonviolence as its opposite—“Whatever a violent person does, I will not do.” To practice celibacy, we simply do the opposite of the sexual person. Thus for us, celibacy is the opposite of sex; nonviolence the opposite of violence; non-stealing the opposite of theft; truth the opposite of falsehood. This is utterly wrong. These are not opposites; they are absences.

Nonviolence arrives on the day violence is not. What remains when violence departs is called nonviolence. It is the farewell of violence and what is left behind. Where sex bids goodbye, what remains is called celibacy. Therefore celibacy is not the opposite of sex; in opposites the presence of sex remains.

Keep in mind: whenever you create an opposite, the presence of its enemy persists within it; it never disappears. If forgiveness is the opposite of anger, then anger will be present inside forgiveness. If celibacy is the opposite of sex, celibacy will be on the surface and sex within. Opposites cannot live without their enemies; they are inevitably bound together.

This must be understood rightly: the supreme truths of life, the supreme realizations, are realizations of absence, of negation—not of opposition.

As soon as samadhi flowers, certain things simply take their leave. Violence departs, because violence has no connection with a mind established in samadhi.

So in my view these are symptoms. If a person is violent, that is a symptom that meditation has not been attained within. If a person is unchaste, it is a symptom that meditation has not been attained within. Therefore I take unchastity, sex, violence, theft as symptoms of the inner state.

And whoever labors to change the symptom is like a madman. Someone has a fever, the body is hot, and we set about cooling the body, saying, “There is fever; the body is hot.”

Heat is only a symptom. Somewhere inside there is a disease; the elements of the body have fallen into conflict, and from that conflict the body has heated up. Within, the elements are fighting; from that turmoil comes fever. Fever is only an indicator that there is disease inside. If the physician sets about cooling the heat—with cold baths, say—the disease is unlikely to go, and the patient is more likely to go.

A true physician sees the heat and diagnoses that there is disease within. He treats the disease; the heat departs. The heat was only a sign.

A violent or sexualized mind is an indicator of inner unconsciousness—of sleep, of non-meditativeness, of stupor, of a drugged state. Break that intoxication within, and violence will depart from without, and nonviolence will begin to flower.

Therefore, talk of directly practicing these principles is not right at all. Those who have tried to practice them directly have only entered into suppression, repression, self-mortification—a long process of self-torture. Its result has never been liberation—derangement and madness may come, but never freedom.

This, too, is very amusing. We often feel that Mahavira became a monk and kept telling others to become monks. It seems so to us because we ourselves are un-saintly, and if we want to be saintly we think we must become so. The truth is: saintliness happens; you don’t have to make it. And whatever is manufactured will be hollow, false, a pretense, a show.

A young man once went to a fakir and asked how he could attain saintliness. The fakir said, There are two kinds of saintliness: becoming a saint is very easy; being a saint is very difficult.

To become a saint is mere acting. Stay as you are inside. Change your clothes, your costume, your language—change everything on the surface, and you will be a saint.

To be a saint is hard, because then changing clothes, changing dress, changing the cover will do nothing; only if you change will anything happen.

To say “Mahavira became a saint” is to misuse words. Mahavira came to be a saint. Becoming happens through effort; being happens through inner transformation.

And even to say that Mahavira told people, “Become a saint,” is wrong. Mahavira told no one to become a saint. He said, “Wake up to your un-saintliness, and you will find saintliness beginning to arrive.”

The language of becoming is the language of effort. By effort we can become many things—but not saints. Saintliness is transformation—total inward transformation.

Saintliness is not such a thing that yesterday a man was un-saintly and today he is a saint. It is not that yesterday someone was un-saintly, today he took initiation, changed his dress, tied on a mouth-cloth, and became a saint! Yesterday un-saintly, today a saint—and tomorrow he throws away the mouth-cloth, changes his dress, and becomes un-saintly again!

If mouth-cloths, robes, ochre garments—these outer trappings—are what make a man a saint, then it’s very easy: one can become a saint and then become un-saintly again.

But have you ever heard of someone who truly became a saint and then became un-saintly? The one who has tasted the bliss of saintliness—how can he descend into the misery of un-saintliness? The one who has tasted that joy—can he become un-saintly again? No. He was never a saint to begin with; only his clothes had changed, his appearance had changed, the sham had changed, the acting had changed. Acting can be changed again tomorrow. What changes only over us is not a change within us.

Mahavira did not become a saint. Whoever becomes a saint today can become un-saintly tomorrow. Perhaps Mahavira himself may not even have known when saintliness happened to him. The process of being is utterly slow, quiet, and silent. The process of becoming is very declarative—done with band and brass. Becoming is with crowds and processions. Becoming is one thing; being is another.

As by night a bud opens into a flower—perhaps even the plant does not know when. When a tiny sprout becomes a large leaf—perhaps the leaf itself does not know. When you were a child and when you became young—did you come to know? And when you were young and became old—did you come to know? When you were born—did you know? And when silently you will die—will you know? All this happens quietly, in silence. Life works very quietly.

Just so: if one goes on understanding one’s un-saintliness, goes on seeing it, seeing it, then one day, suddenly, he is astonished—when did I become a saint! Even he does not notice at what moment the transformation happened. The appearance is the same, the clothes are the same, everything on the outside is the same; but this silent event has occurred.

Mahavira never became a saint, nor did he ever tell anyone, “Become a saint.”

Yes, people who saw Mahavira became “saints,” and then they told others, “Become a saint!” The mistake is in the seeing. We never see the inner, gradual development—only the outer events appear to our eyes. Outside, yesterday a man was like this, today he is like that—that we can see. The inner bridge in between is missed. That bridge is what is valuable. How does a man come to saintliness?

Some years ago a Muslim lawyer came to see me. He said, I had wanted to come for many months, but I didn’t, thinking: my mind is restless, I want to ask you how to become peaceful. But I was afraid you would say, Stop eating meat, stop stealing, stop dishonesty, don’t drink, don’t gamble—and all these cling to me. Whenever I went to a saint, that’s exactly what he said: “First give these up, then you can be peaceful.” But these don’t leave me. So I stopped going to saints. What’s the point! He’ll say the same: “First give these up.” They don’t leave me—liquor doesn’t leave me, gambling doesn’t leave me—nothing leaves me. That’s why I didn’t come to you.

So I asked, Why have you come today? He said, Today I went to a friend’s house for dinner. He told me that you say, “Don’t give up anything.” Then I felt I should come. You don’t ask one to give up anything? Can I drink? Can I gamble?

I said, What have I to do with your drinking and gambling? That is your business. He said, Then we might get along. So tell me, what should I do? If I needn’t give up anything, then what should I do? I am very restless, very unhappy. I told him, Begin a small experiment in meditation—begin the experiment of self-remembering, of remembering yourself. Sit for half an hour every day, just alone, simply being with yourself; forget everything else. For that time, don’t gamble in your mind; I have nothing to do with gambling outside. For that time, don’t drink in your mind; I have nothing to do with liquor outside. For that time, don’t eat meat; that is enough. For that time, don’t take a bribe.

He said, That I can do; I can save half an hour. Twenty-three and a half hours—no issue at all! I said, I have no concern with them; that is your affair. Give me half an hour. He gave me his word. And he was truly a remarkable, courageous man. For six months he didn’t come back. But he kept his promise of half an hour.

After six months he returned. His gait had changed; the man had changed. He said to me, You deceived me.

Why would I deceive you?

That half hour was fine, but my other twenty-three and a half hours have run into trouble. They’ve become difficult. Yesterday I drank and I vomited on the spot, because my whole mind was refusing. That half hour is proving weighty; the other twenty-three and a half are in trouble. When I go to take a bribe, my hand pulls back, as if someone were saying loudly, “What are you doing?” Because the peace and bliss I’m getting in that half hour—I now want it to spread over twenty-four hours.

I said, That is your business. The twenty-three and a half hours—don’t discuss them with me. Don’t discuss them with me.

Six months later he came again and said, Either I take back the half hour I gave you—but I cannot, because the joy I have found in that half hour I never found in my whole life—or I give you the other twenty-three and a half hours too, because now they have become meaningless. I cannot eat meat now. What troubles me is the thought that I ate it for so many years. For forty-five years—how insensitive I was, that I kept eating! Now I cannot even carry it within. I cannot even think how I kept drinking for so many years.

I asked, What is the difficulty now in drinking? He said, The difficulty is very clear. Earlier I was restless; I would drink and the restlessness would go. Now I am peaceful; I drink and the peace goes. And I do not want to lose peace—I wanted to lose restlessness.

So I said, As you wish; do what you feel is right. Even now when he meets me he says, You really deceived me. Had you told me beforehand, I might not even have given you that half hour. I said, I have no use for your twenty-three and a half hours. But this is how the difficulty comes: everything turns upside down. Everything turns upside down.

Mahavira’s meditation is such that whoever passes through it cannot eat meat. Mahavira does not tell anyone, “Don’t eat meat.” The meditation itself is such that if you pass through it, you cannot eat meat. You will become so sensitive that it will feel utterly foolish, gross, to take another’s life for your food. It will begin to feel impossible. Whoever passes through Mahavira’s meditation cannot drink alcohol, because that meditation takes one into such wakefulness, such bliss, that to drink would mean destroying all of that.

But our situation is the reverse. We clutch at commandments: don’t eat meat, don’t drink; don’t do this, don’t do that. We clutch them tightly—“Don’t do these, and then what happened to Mahavira will happen to you!”

It will never happen. Because you have set out in the wrong direction. You are sowing chaff; you do not even know the wheat.

This too is a very thought-provoking point—very thought-provoking indeed. There are two or three things to understand. In Mahavira’s vision there is no sense of inequality between woman and man. His grasp of equality is so deep that he does not even hold inequality between a human and an animal, between a human and a plant. And yet, within the monastic order he did make certain distinctions between men and women—and there are reasons for that. Those reasons have not been understood till now; perhaps you can sense why they have been missed.

Mahavira is not against women; he is against femininity. This has not been understood. Mahavira is not “for men” as a gender; but there is a certain quality in being a man that he supports. If we understand these two points, the picture becomes clear. Many males are feminine; and many females are masculine.

What is meant by femininity? Femininity means passivity. Masculinity means activity.

Generally, a woman is passive, a man is active. The woman is waiting; the man is aggressive. Even when a woman loves, she does not attack—you won’t find her going and grabbing someone, saying, “I love you.” Not even that. If she loves, she sits silently and waits for you to come and say, “I love you.” The feminine mind is non-aggressive. And this is not only about women: many men will also just wait in the same way.

Mahavira says—just as I explained earlier—his entire sadhana is of resolve, of effort, of the shramana. He says: the one who wants truth must set out on the journey, must go, must struggle, must accept challenge, courage, conflict. Sitting and waiting, truth will not come.

Therefore Mahavira says that if a woman too is to attain truth, she will have to become a man! This was badly misunderstood. It was taken to mean that liberation is impossible in a female body; that a woman must take one more birth as a man, and only then can she be liberated. The point was entirely different. On Mahavira’s path liberation happens only through the “male birth,” yes—but “male birth” does not mean changing the body; it only means dropping passivity, dropping inactivity.

For example, a woman may feel it most natural to sing Krishna’s song and say, “You take me wherever you wish; you are the path, you are the support. I am nothing—you are everything; now take me wherever you will.” All that is the origin of the path of devotion, and it arises from the feminine mind—not from woman as such; keep this in mind, otherwise you will go astray.

The entire path of devotion springs from the feminine mind. For the devotee says, “What can I do?” As a beloved rests her hand on her lover’s shoulder, places her hand in his hand, and then wherever the lover leads she goes. The feminine mind says, “If someone leads me, I will go. If someone delivers me, I will arrive. I can surrender, I can lay everything at the feet—but someone must take me along; going by myself will not happen.”

Like a vine: it cannot stand straight on its own; only when it finds the support of a tree can it stand. The vine needs a support. That need is built into its very being.

Woman asks for support. And Mahavira is totally against support. He says: the moment you ask for support, you have become dependent. Do not ask for support at all—be utterly without support, totally supportless. The day you stand absolutely without any prop, you yourself will become the support. But the moment you ask for a prop, you are crippled, you are poor, you are inferior, you are dependent on someone. So do not even ask for God’s support! The question is not “whose.” Asking for support itself is to become servile.

So Mahavira says: do not ask for support.

This is an extremely austere path; it is a very masculine path. On this masculine path there is no movement for the feminine mind. One may be a woman in body and still move.

There is a Tirthankara of the Jains, Mallibai. She was a woman; she became a Tirthankara. And the Digambaras called her Mallinath, not even Mallibai!

This too has meaning. It simply means it is meaningless to call her a woman. To call Mallibai a woman is pointless, because she could stand utterly without support, with the courage of a man. She asked for no prop. What kind of a “woman” is that! Therefore the Digambaras did not call her Mallibai; they said Mallinath. Later a quarrel arose: was Mallibai female or male? The Digambaras say male, the Shvetambaras say female. Both are right. Mallibai was a woman, but to call her a woman is meaningless. In the true sense she should be called a man—by “man” meaning that the entire state of her mind was not feminine.

Here in Kashmir there was a woman, Lalla. Kashmiris say, “We recognize only two names: Allah and Lalla.” But calling Lalla a woman is difficult; she cannot be called a woman. She is the only woman who remained naked. Mahavira remained naked—fine; a man can remain naked. That is in the scope of the masculine mind.

Why can a man remain naked? Because an essential trait of the masculine mind is that it does not bother about what others think of him. He simply does not care. A woman is concerned twenty-four hours a day with the other. She wears clothes with an eye to how others will see her. She adorns herself thinking all the time how others will see her. The other is supremely important—whether that other is the husband, the lover, or society. A woman is seldom standing in herself; she is always seeing through the other’s gaze: “How do I appear to the other?”

Mahavira’s standing naked is not a big deal. But Lalla’s standing naked—that is a very great thing. Any man can stand naked; it is not much of an event. But on the whole earth only one woman remained naked—Lalla! All her life she remained naked. Such a person has the masculine mind.

That feminine concern—“What does the other say?”—is so important to a woman: “How do I look to the other?” That is more important than “What am I?” “How I appear to the other” outweighs “What I am.”

Gandhi was staying with Rabindranath at Shantiniketan. One evening both were about to go for a walk. Rabindranath said, “Wait two minutes, I’ll just comb my hair.” He went inside. Even hearing this felt odd to Gandhi—that in old age, to be so concerned about combing hair! But it was Rabindranath; had it been someone else, Gandhi might have said something right there. He did not say anything.

Rabindranath went in. Two minutes? Ten minutes passed. Gandhi peeped through the window: there he was, standing before a full-length mirror, combing his hair, lost in the mirror. Fifteen minutes passed—Gandhi’s patience wore out. He went in and said, “What are you doing?” Rabindranath started and said, “Ah! I forgot—let’s go.”

As they walked, Gandhi said, “I am amazed. At this age you comb your hair like that!” Rabindranath said, “When I was young it could pass without combing. Since I have grown old, I must groom a lot. I worry much about how I will look to others. And I even feel that if I am ugly, that too is violence—because it hurts the other’s eyes. So I should be beautiful. To hurt the eye of another is also violence. If someone gets a little delight seeing me, that is nonviolence. So I try, as far as possible, to be beautiful.”

Rabindranath has a feminine mind. He is a man—but if one had the courage, just as Mallibai was called Mallinath, there would be no harm in calling Rabindranath “Rabindrabai.” That inner mind is utterly feminine. Perhaps all poets have it. In fact, perhaps poetry cannot even be born from the masculine. The world of poetry is born of the feminine mind.

That is why, as science advances in the world, poetry recedes. The reason is that science is the birth of the masculine mind; as the masculine mind triumphs, poetry falls back.

The entire mind of woman is poetic—of dreams, of imagination. It is passive: it cannot do, it can only imagine. There are reasons for this too. In truth, a poet means a passive mind. He can sit and imagine; he cannot do anything. He can build palaces—but only in imagination! Palaces that can be built sitting—those he can build. The ones that require standing up, breaking stones, collecting bricks—that is not his capacity. He can build palaces of words, because that can be done sitting.

More interesting still: in science one has to do—one discovers; the masculine mind discovers, uncovers what is covered. The poet does not discover; he simply sits silently. In fact, when a great poem descends into him, he is utterly passive, totally feminine. Something descends into him.

Rabindranath says, “What did I sing? When I am not, O God, you sing through me. When I am absent, you descend and sing through me.”

This mind is a wholly passive mind. Something descends into it, flows through it. It waits, watches for the moment—but itself remains quiet and silent. So all poet-minds will be feminine minds.

Mahavira’s emphasis has this reason behind it. This is not a matter of higher and lower between woman and man. It is a consideration of what the feminine mind and the masculine mind can do. Therefore Mahavira says “a woman cannot be liberated.”

This must be understood. He means: the feminine mind cannot be liberated. A woman can be liberated—but on Mahavira’s path her mind must be masculine.

If one wishes to go by Meera’s path, Meera will say, “A man cannot be liberated.” On Meera’s path a feminine mind is needed. On that path there is no liberation for the masculine, because a man cannot even conceive the kind of thing Meera conceives. And if ever a man does so, he immediately becomes feminine.

For example, if Kabir or Surdas goes mad in love with Krishna, what does he think? Immediately the talk of the feminine mind begins. Kabir says, “I am the bride of Rama!” “I am Rama’s bride!” That mood of the woman begins to arise. “I am waiting on the bridal bed—when will you come?” The bed is prepared, flowers have been scattered, fragrance spread, the incense is lit—and still you have not come! Waiting begins. The feminine mind has begun to wait.

And in the world there are only two kinds of minds: feminine and masculine. Therefore, at the deepest, there are only two paths to liberation: the feminine path and the masculine path.

Mahavira’s path is the masculine path; therefore, on Mahavira’s path there is no room for the feminine mind.

Yes—so for them there is some middle path. Thus there are many paths, but fundamentally there are only two basic ones. Because the masculine and the feminine are the two extreme poles in human life; at those two extremes exist two different modes of being. Most people are in the middle. Most people are in the middle, so they take a middle road in which they both meditate and worship.

Now, the curious thing is that meditation is part of the masculine path, and worship is part of the feminine path. They try to harmonize worship and meditation—going on doing worship and going on doing meditation! That is a hodgepodge. And my understanding is that with a hodgepodge, liberation is very difficult—because then sometimes we go a little on this path, sometimes a little on that.

Therefore a very precise analysis of one’s inner mind is essential: which path is right for which person?

Meera went to Vrindavan. There was a great sadhu there—a priest, a saint—and she went for his darshan, standing at his door. He sent word: “I do not look at women, I do not meet women.” Meera sent back a reply: “I had thought there is only one Man in the world; I did not know there was a second! Are you also a man?” He too was a devotee of Krishna. So Meera sent word: “I had thought Krishna alone is the Man—and you, being a devotee of Krishna, are also a man?” The priest came running, saying, “Forgive me, I was mistaken. Come inside.”

There is great meaning in this. First, the priest said a wrong thing. If he is a devotee of Krishna, he himself should be feminine. For with Krishna, none but the sakhis—the intimate companions—can be in harmony; there is no other way there. There one needs a heart like Radha’s—totally surrendered, leaning entirely on the Beloved; waiting; hand in hand with the Other—letting the Other lead.

That too is a path. If one goes wholly that way, realization is available there as well. But that is not Mahavira’s way. Therefore, on Mahavira’s path the feminine consciousness will indeed be set aside—but that is not a rejection of women. Otherwise, it will be a mistake.

First, keep in mind what I have said as a whole: in Mahavira’s mind there is no place for the feminine mind, for femininity—first. And second, there is also a psychological reason; keep that in mind. And it is quite amusing; it never quite occurs to people.

It is a very strange thing that an elderly nun should bow even to a young monk who is only one day initiated! No monk should ever bow to a nun! Naturally, it will look as if much respect has been given to the man and the woman has been greatly insulted!

The matter is the other way round, but it is deeply psychological; that is why it does not occur at once. The fact is that the possibility of restraint is greater in women than in men, always. The likelihood of a man being unrestrained is much greater; the likelihood of a woman being restrained is much greater.

The reasons are that man is aggressive; his mind is aggressive. Unless someone leads a woman into unrestrainedness, she is not one to go on her own—note this. Someone has to lead her—whether toward liberation or toward hell; someone must take her by the hand and take her; only then does she go. On her own she does not go anywhere.

Man takes the initiative in everything—whether sin or virtue, liberation or hell, darkness or light; man is the one who initiates. Even when someone leads into sin, it is the man who leads the woman. Very rarely is there an occasion when a woman has led a man into sin. If ever she does, the reason will be only this—that she has a masculine mind, no other reason.

But it is very, very difficult that a woman should lead anyone—into sin, or into virtue, or into religion; it just does not arise. Therefore a woman very rarely becomes a leader. The possibility of leadership, of taking initiative, is small in her. And if it happens, there is some fundamental substratum of a masculine mind in her.

Here Mahavira is demonstrating a very marvelous psychological insight—one that no one had given before Freud. But the insight is so deep that it is not immediately visible. Since it is the man who can lead into sin, not the woman—and take note of one thing—for this Mahavira devised a very simple device: let the woman give respect to the man. And when a woman gives respect to a man, it becomes difficult for his ego to take that woman into sin. If a woman gives you respect, considers you worthy of worship, places her head at your feet, then it becomes difficult for your ego to pull her down—because now, having been given so much respect, for you to cast it off and shatter it and lead her toward sin becomes difficult for your ego. Your ego will now sit carefully—because the one who has given so much respect: how can I step down and violate her reverence? That will be difficult.

Mahavira made a very psychological device, a great psychological device. Since a man can lead a woman into sin, the woman was told: however old she may be, give respect to the man, touch his feet, place your head at his feet, so that his ego finds it difficult even to imagine taking any woman into sin—that it becomes impossible.

If you look carefully here, it is the woman who bends at the man’s feet, but in fact in this event the man has been wholly disrespected and the woman wholly honored. But seeing that is a bit difficult. In this matter the woman has full honor. Because the point is that a woman never, on her own, leads anyone into sin.

Therefore note: Mahavira had thirteen thousand monks and forty thousand nuns. And the ratio has always been like this. And the number of nuns has always been more than the number of monks—because of passivity. That is, since they do not take initiative in any work, they remain where they are; they stop where they are.

It is also quite interesting that if a woman has not been led into sex and not initiated into sexual desire, she can remain celibate her whole life—there is no hindrance, no difficulty. If a woman is not initiated into sexual desire, she can remain celibate her entire life. But a man cannot. For the man it is a great difficulty.

The whole arrangement of a woman’s body and mind is quite marvelous; it is very different. The structure of a man’s personality and body is very different. A woman has to be initiated into sexual desire, and she has to be initiated into religious practice as well. She simply does not take the initiative. Initiative is not a part of her personality. She does not begin; someone else begins, she follows. If a beginning is not made, then even for her whole life a woman can be kept absolutely innocent.

Therefore innocent girls are found, but innocent boys are very hard to find. Virginal girls are found; virginal boys are rare. A girl’s virginity has to be broken; only then does it break. And a boy’s virginity can be preserved only if it is protected with great care. That is, there is a fundamental difference in these two matters.

And therefore, those many controls and restraints that we see upon girls are in fact not upon the girls—but our understanding is very small. Girls have been kept at home, not allowed to meet boys, not allowed to run around; the reason is not that there is distrust of the girls; the reason is that they can be initiated into anything at any time. It is the boys who are not trusted. Those boys who are outside are not trustworthy. They can give the initiative of sin to the girls. And since girls themselves can never give any initiative...

So this arrangement that Mahavira made—that in every situation the nun should give respect to the monk—in it the male ego was greatly gratified as well, and the monks must have thought, “We have been greatly honored”; and even today they are still thinking exactly that...!

No, no—this is not about breaking the ego. Here Mahavira is keeping the male ego entirely protected. He is safeguarding the male ego. The nun bows to the man...

If a woman touches your feet and places her head at your feet, you will become absolutely incapable of leading this woman toward sex—you will become incapable. You will be incapable because your ego now faces a great obstacle. Someone who has given you such respect—how can you become so petty before her? It becomes impossible. You will stiffen. You will now protect that respect. The respect you have received, you will have to guard. You cannot violate it.

But in the case of the woman, the matter is the opposite. If it is said that the man should honor the woman and touch her feet, even there one must understand something. Whether you touch a woman’s feet or any part of her body, a woman’s sexuality pervades her entire body. A man’s sex is only around his sex center, not beyond that. His whole body is sexless, except for the sex center. But a woman’s whole body is sexual; she is sensuous with her entire body.

Therefore a man can find pleasure from intercourse alone, but a woman never finds pleasure from intercourse alone. Until the man plays with her whole body, awakens her whole body, she never finds joy. She remains frigid. Until her whole body is awakened, every pore is aroused, until her whole body begins to tremble and becomes fevered in passion, she does not taste the nectar. For a man all this is of no concern; his whole body has no role. His sex center releases, and the matter is finished.

So if a man is made even to touch a woman’s feet, that too can begin the awakening of sexual possibility in the woman. Her whole body is sexual. Her whole body is sexual, and if the man is given the chance to touch her feet, this is a beginning—and this beginning can advance further.

And if the man is made to bow from the outset, then he has no fear of bowing further—keep that in mind. If he has already been made to bow at the feet, what lower place is there to go? He is already at the feet. That is, now he has no fear at all. Now he can initiate the woman onto any path of sin.

Therefore Mahavira’s statement is truly astonishing, but I don’t think it has ever been said anywhere in these twenty-five hundred years! And generally it has been understood that he is insulting the woman and honoring the man. The matter is exactly the reverse. In this happening the man is completely humiliated, and the woman completely honored.

No. So far, I am not aware that anyone has. So far, it does not seem to me that anyone has.

Yes, that’s the one. Yes, that’s the one: that the woman is the lower yoni; the man is the higher yoni; therefore one should bow to the male yoni. But I consider that interpretation absolutely wrong. It has nothing to do with this point.

Yes, go ahead, ask.

First, Mahavira’s order makes a fourfold classification of human beings: shravak, shravika, sadhu, sadhvi. Mahavira’s path of practice begins with the shravak or shravika. No one can become a sadhu all at once; the very question does not arise. Mahavira’s discipline is a complete, graded path. First one has to be a shravak. And the shravak’s practices—meditation, samayik—belong to the shravak stage. When one has passed through that, when one has attained to that measure, then one can enter the life of a sadhu.

Mahavira is not eager to bring anyone straight into initiation as a sadhu—only when the sadhu is born within. The shravak stage is the groundwork where the sadhu is born; then he may go. And even then there is no insistence that he must go; he can attain moksha while remaining a shravak.

This is a delightful and unique point: only Mahavira dared to say that even as a shravak one can go directly to moksha; becoming a sadhu in between is not compulsory. That is, even while remaining a shravak he may be a sadhu in essence; there is no hindrance to liberation in this. But Mahavira says: let it be as it feels blissfully right.

Suppose you go deep in meditation and you feel that keeping clothes on is just fine—then continue. And if at some point you feel within that you should drop them, that they have no meaning, then why prevent it? Then drop them. Mahavira honors the natural, the spontaneous. If a person feels he has become quiet, meditative, and that living at home this can continue—fine. If it does not, if he feels it has become futile and wants to renounce, Mahavira does not stop that either. Let him leave and go. But there is no obstruction from him.

And there is no insistence either, no insistence at all.

No, no—no one can do that. There is simply no way to become it. There is simply no way to become it. One has to pass through the discipline of being a shravak. Then either one becomes a sadhu while remaining a shravak, or one becomes what we conventionally call a sadhu—there is no obstacle in that. There is no obstacle in that.

First, there is no need for something to be acceptable to society. I do not even keep an eye on whether society accepts it or not. Nor is there any reason to think that what society accepts must therefore be right. What society accepts is only that which keeps society exactly as it is.

Of course, whenever the idea arises that society should change—vision should change, thinking should change—rejection comes. Primarily, what I am saying is likely to be rejected—by society, not by the intelligent. But if what I am saying is intelligent, scientific, factual, essential, then that rejection will have to break. Rejection cannot win; it will have to lose. And if it is not factual, is unscientific, not essential, then rejection will win—and it should.

So first, the question simply does not arise in my mind as to who will accept it and who will reject it. That is not the question. Whatever truth I see, I have to say it. If it is truth, then if not today, tomorrow it will have to be accepted.

It is impossible to reject truth ultimately. But truth too is initially rejected. In fact, only truth is rejected, because we live in untruth and it runs contrary to it—so it is rejected. Truth is first rejected. But if it is truth, it endures and is accepted; and if it is untruth, it dies and falls away.

There was an extraordinary man, Mahatma Bhagwandin. Whenever he spoke in a gathering and people applauded, he became very sad. He used to tell me, “When someone claps, I suspect I must have said something untrue. It is unlikely that such a crowd would instantly clap for truth.” He would say, “I wait for the day the crowd suddenly throws stones—then I will know some truth has certainly been spoken. Because the crowd lives in untruth; society lives in untruth. And the first thing that falls upon truth is stones. But even the stones are its first acceptance. And if the stones fall and the truth—if it is truth—survives, then rejection, if not today then tomorrow, has to die. This is the constant story. It has always been so.”

Darkness is thick; ignorance is deep. When the first ray of knowledge descends, when light comes, our first reaction is that our eyes shut tight. One who lives in darkness cannot at once muster the capacity to see light. The first thing is, the eyes close.

But how long can the eyes remain closed? They will have to open. And if the light is truly light, it will be recognized. Sometimes it takes a thousand years, sometimes two thousand. My own understanding is that what Mahavira or Buddha saw, what Christ or Krishna saw—has it even today been accepted? Even now it waits. Even now it stands waiting: the time will come, the time will come, the time will come!

Truth has to wait endlessly, because our untruth is so deep, our ignorance so deep. But truth does not worry about that. Only untruth worries about acceptance—remember this. For untruth can live only by acceptance. Truth lives even without acceptance; it has life of its own.

There is an old story: untruth has no legs of its own. If it wants to walk, it has to borrow truth’s legs. It has none of its own.

That is, untruth cannot stand on its own feet. It can stand if it gets your acceptance—then it begins to appear like truth. If untruth receives acceptance, it seems like truth. And if truth receives rejection, it still does not become untruth; it only appears like untruth. But truth is truth and untruth is untruth. Even if untruth lasts for millions of years, it remains untruth; and even if truth cannot run at all, it remains truth. It makes no difference.

When Galileo for the first time said that the sun does not go around the earth, that the earth goes around the sun, there was great anger among the Christians! Because the Bible says the earth is fixed and the sun circles it. So did Jesus not know? Did our prophets not know?

Seventy-year-old Galileo, with chains on his hands, was brought before the Pope’s court. He was told to declare that what he had said was false, and to say that the earth is fixed and the sun circles it, that the earth does not circle the sun.

Galileo was a fine man. He said, “As you wish.” He wrote on paper, “Since you say so, I will write that the sun goes around the earth, and the earth does not go around the sun.” “But whatever I write makes no difference; it is the earth that goes around the sun. What can I do? I cannot stop it from revolving. I can only say what you want me to say, but it changes nothing. What difference does it make? It is the earth that goes around the sun.” He even wrote this in the very statement he signed.

Even if Galileo were to deny it—he wrote in that statement—what difference does it make? It isn’t Galileo who makes it revolve! Fine, today there will be denial, but how many days will you keep denying?

Galileo is a very ordinary man, but the Bible lost and Galileo won. Because it is truth that wins—not the Bible, not Galileo; not Christ or Krishna; not Mahavira, not Mohammed—truth wins, untruth loses. But it may take time.

Untruth does everything to save itself, to protect itself. Its greatest protection is acceptance—creating acceptance among people. Therefore untruth lives on acceptance. It has nothing else with which to live; its legs are those of acceptance. Truth does not even bother about acceptance; it lives even in rejection. Because it has its own legs, its own breath, its own life. And it waits, and it can wait for eternity. Someday the eyes open and things are seen.

I have no worry at all. I have never worried about who will accept what I say and who will not. The person who worries in this way can never speak truth. Because first he looks at you to see what you will accept—that alone must he say. For him, approval is more valuable. And if those from whom you seek approval were themselves available to truth, there would be no need to speak at all.

If you have to seek endorsement for the sun from those standing in darkness, they will say that darkness comes out of the sun—light does not. So either, if you want their acceptance, say that very deep darkness issues from the sun—they will clap! Or tell them that the sun and darkness—there is no relation at all; darkness has never come from the sun. The sun breaks darkness. Then those blind people will say, “So you mean you alone were born with eyes? We are all blind?”

And this is very insulting—to be told that someone has eyes and all the rest are blind. It hurts deeply. So if they all together try to put out the eye of the one who has eyes, there is nothing much amiss in it; they are merely taking their revenge. They have been hurt; their minds were insulted; their egos were struck. But truth waits—and it has the patience to wait.

As our society is, untruth is indispensable for its survival. As our society is, from suffering...

As it has been up to now—as our society is—filled with misery, filled with pain, filled with exploitation, filled with ego, filled with jealousy, filled with enmity—as this is our society, if one wants to keep it alive, it can live only on untruth.
If this society is to be changed and a new society created—filled with bliss, filled with light, filled with love; where there is no jealousy, no ambition; no hatred, no enmity, no anger—then truth will have to be brought in.

Everyone wishes for bliss; every person is striving for bliss—and from that very striving he gets only suffering. This is quite a joke! It is good that you ask. Everyone wants bliss, wants peace, but whatever he does to gain peace and bliss, from all of that he gets misery and restlessness. Yet he does not want to change what he is doing.

Take, for example, a man who is ambitious. He says, “I want bliss!” But an ambitious mind can never be blissful. Whatever he attains, he will be dissatisfied with; and for what he does not attain, he will suffer. However much he gets, his ambitious mind will always be filled with the pain of the next thing.

He says, “I want to be blissful,” and he also says, “I am ambitious only so that I can be blissful!” He is unwilling to see that ambition and bliss are in opposition.

Only a non-ambitious mind can be available to bliss. No one in the world can rob such a person of his joy. And no one can give joy to an ambitious mind. Yet we want to keep our ambition going and still be blissful!

Now a man says, “I want love”—and he never gives love! You are quite right: he says he wants love. Who says we don’t want love? But he never gives; he only asks—and everyone is asking for love!

It has come to such a state as if, in a village, everyone were a beggar, and all stood before each other with folded hands, begging from one another. If all are beggars, if everyone wants to ask and no one wants to give, what would be the condition of that village? That is exactly our condition! No one wants to give love; everyone wants to beg for it.

And remember, the person who learns the art of giving love never asks. Because it begins to come to him; the question of asking does not arise. Only the one who cannot give goes on asking.

So the essence is this: we all want love—fine; there is nothing wrong in that. But love comes only to those who do not seek it and who give; that is the key to receiving. Because that key does not enter our understanding, mistakes happen; we go on wandering!

Yes—what do you say? Speak.

I don't understand—what are you saying?

One must change oneself first.

He will get it, he certainly will. That is exactly what I am saying—we all want it, but we want it while remaining just as we are! That is impossible. It is impossible.

We all want to reach the sky, but we don’t want to lift our feet from the earth! It’s a tough business. We want to stay rooted in the ground and yet arrive in the sky! And if someone says, “If you want the sky, forget about the sky and first let go of the earth; you will begin to arrive in the sky.” Because once you leave the ground, where else can you go? There is nowhere to go but the sky. But the person says, “We’ll leave the earth afterwards—first let us reach the sky. Suppose you take the earth from us and we don’t get the sky either! We’ll be in trouble.” But the fact is, by letting go of the ground the sky is attained—because where else can you go?

This is our difficulty: forever we have been wanting joy, peace, love—but what we have been doing is just the opposite, exactly the opposite! By that, neither peace nor love nor joy can happen. And this is the difficulty with every person.

Everyone is living in hatred, in envy, in thick jealousy, and still wants joy! How can a jealous mind know joy? A jealous mind is always miserable: a big house on the road—he feels miserable; a lush garden—miserable; a car—miserable; someone’s wife—miserable; someone’s clothes—miserable! And all this will be seen—where will he go to escape it? It is everywhere. Everything gives him pain; whatever he sees, that very thing hurts him.

Nor is it only the big house that hurts. Sometimes the sight of a man living in a hut and happy hurts too. It’s the limit! He lives in a hut and is happy! Sometimes even a beggar appears blissful, and that also hurts: “I have everything and I am not happy—and this beggar is more blissful, enjoying everything!”

A jealous mind is an alchemy—a whole chemistry—for producing misery. It manufactures suffering, yet it wants happiness! Now that is a great difficulty. If these contradictions are not seen, we are trapped; we cannot really live. We will go on desiring happiness and go on producing misery. And the more misery we produce, the more intensely we will crave happiness; and the more the craving increases, the more jealous we become—and the more misery we produce.

Each person is caught in an inner contradiction. Becoming alert to this contradiction is the beginning of sadhana. Alert to what? To whether what I want and what I am doing coincide. I want to reach the roof, yet I am walking down the stairs. Seeing this contradiction is essential: I am doing the opposite.

If I want to be happy, jealousy is taking me downward; jealousy is giving me suffering right now. If I want happiness, I must be free of jealousy, so that nothing can make me suffer—not a big house, not a blissful man, not a car, not a woman—nothing. Because the device within me that produced suffering has departed. I am no longer jealous. And when I am not jealous, everything can give joy. There remains no cause for pain; that chemistry is broken, that secret undone; the mechanism that used to generate misery is gone.

To wake up to life’s inner oppositions—to see that we are doing the reverse of what we want—is the start of sadhana. And once this is seen, we can no longer do the reverse. How could we?

For example, a man wants to sleep at night. Sleep doesn’t come, so he starts trying to bring sleep. He washes his feet, splashes his eyes, drinks water, chants Ram-Ram, turns a rosary, changes sides, walks a little, counts sheep and goats—tries a thousand tricks to make sleep come somehow. But he doesn’t know that every trick he uses will prevent sleep. Any effort breaks sleep. If he did nothing at all, perhaps sleep would come. The moment he does something, sleep cannot come—because doing is the exact opposite of sleep. Sleep comes in non-doing.

So once a man’s sleep is disturbed, he falls into a vicious circle. He will now make efforts to bring sleep! The efforts will break sleep! The more sleep breaks, the more efforts he will make! The more efforts, the less sleep! He is caught in a loop from which it is hard to pull him out. If one day he sees the contradiction—how can sleep come through effort? Effort is the opposite of sleep—then he will stop trying, just lie there, and say: “If it comes, it comes; if it doesn’t, it doesn’t—I will do nothing.” And soon he will find that sleep has come. Because when nothing is done, sleep comes; and when something is done, sleep does not. Whether he recites a mantra or turns a rosary—doing as such is the opposite of sleep. But we live our whole lives in contradictions—our whole lives! And then the difficulty keeps growing.

The moment someone attains this awareness and begins to see his inner oppositions, revolution starts. Because once contradictions are seen, living in them becomes impossible. How can a man who needs to go to the terrace keep descending the stairs if he sees he is going down while he needs to go up? The matter is finished. He will go up.

And when the opposition disappears, yoga arises in life—harmony arises. We do what we want to do; we become what we long to become. Then simplicity, naturalness arrives; because the opposition is gone, anxiety is gone. The inner fragmentation, the going in opposite directions, is finished.

Our condition is like a bullock cart with oxen yoked on both sides, each side trying to pull the cart its own way! Only the joints and frame of the cart keep loosening; the cart goes nowhere. Sometimes the oxen on one side grow stronger and drag it ten steps; by the time they drag it, they tire; then the other side grows strong and pulls it back ten steps. This is how it goes. A cart at a crossroads, oxen yoked on both sides, just shuffling in place.

We almost die where we are born; hardly anything changes! Because we fail to see the opposition: if there are oxen on both sides, yoke them in one direction—why yoke them on two sides? Let this contradiction be seen, and a new life begins—one we have not known, not even recognized. Then a person does only what should be done, and goes only where he needs to go. Peace arises naturally, for there is no longer any cause for unrest.

What you are asking is right: raga and dvesha are both causes of the same turmoil. Attachment and aversion are like this: one person stands upright, another stands on his head—there is no real difference. One stands with the head down, one with the head up. Aversion is simply the reverse of attachment. Aversion is attachment doing a headstand. Both ensnare, both bind.

Because whatever we are attached to, we are bound to; and whatever we hate, we are also bound to. A friend binds, and an enemy binds. We cannot forget the enemy any more than we can forget the friend—both tie us up.

If a friend dies, something in us is diminished; remember, if an enemy dies, something in us is also diminished! He too leaves an empty space. When an enemy dies, he leaves a vacancy inside. Many times it can even happen that your very life-force seems to go out with the death of your enemy. You lose your strength, because that strength was coming from him—by being bound in opposition to him.

Both bind; both fill up your life. And for the one who has to rise beyond bondage—and it is not that only enemies give sorrow; friends also give sorrow, and enemies sometimes give happiness. The difference is only slight. Only a slight difference. Friends also bring pain; enemies sometimes bring pleasure. They do it in different ways, but both bind.

One for whom bondage itself has become suffering—he makes neither enemies nor friends; he binds neither attachment nor aversion; he takes neither side nor the opposite side. He assumes toward everything the attitude of a witness; he becomes a witness, begins to watch from a distance. He even begins to watch his own life from a distance. He turns his own life into a scene and himself into the seer.

And the moment one becomes a witness, one goes beyond attachment and aversion. Until one is a witness, one cannot be beyond them. The doer can never be beyond raga-dvesha. Because the moment he does anything, friends and enemies arise. He will feel some things as “mine,” others as “not mine.” He will want to save someone, to erase someone else. The doer will always be surrounded by attachment and aversion. The non-doer, the witness—who is not doing but only seeing—one who stands in the state of pure seeing, goes beyond attachment and aversion.

Mahavira does not teach aversion toward the world or the body; those who have not understood Mahavira are indeed teaching just that. Looking at Mahavira’s body one could say that hardly anyone has ever been born who loved the body so much. Simply by seeing Mahavira’s body one could say it; such a lover of the body has rarely existed. Nor does he teach aversion to the world, because he says plainly that aversion binds, hatred binds—so how could he teach it? It only appears that way to others. And there is a reason it appears so.

If we are filled with attachment, we grow weary of it. Everything wearies. When attachment becomes wearisome, the clock’s pendulum begins to move to the other side—toward aversion. That which bores us we begin to hate; attachment ends. Then you want to be free of it. Yesterday you wanted to hold on; today you want to move away.

But because until yesterday you were holding on, you developed the habit of grasping. Now you are bored of grasping and want to withdraw, yet the practice stands in the way—the habit is formed. Now you want to run. A conflict is set up.

Mahavira does not teach aversion—neither toward the body nor toward the world. Mahavira cannot teach aversion at all; the question of toward what does not arise. Aversion is aversion, hatred is hatred—toward whom is not the issue.

Mahavira teaches: become aware of your own aversion, your attachment, your hatred, your love—become discerning. Wakefully look at everything: this is aversion, this is hatred, this is attachment, this is dispassion. When you see all this totally, you will find that attachment and dispassion are two ends of the same thing; friendship and enmity are two ends of the same thing.

And then you will understand: it is like a man who has a coin and wants to keep one face and throw away the other—he is mad. Both faces belong to the same coin; either both are thrown away, or both remain. Yes, you can decide which face you keep on top. You may hold the head side up; the tail will be below—but it will still be there, still in your hand.

So under the lover, hatred sits hidden, waiting for its chance—for the coin to flip. When you grow weary of this side, you flip the coin and begin to look at the other.

Hence it does not take long for a friend to become an enemy. In fact, if someone is not first a friend, it is difficult to make him an enemy; first he must be a friend, only then can he become an enemy. And an enemy turning into a friend is just as easy. Both happen because they are two faces of the same thing.

If someone has attachment, it becomes dispassion on its own; no one needs to manufacture it. And toward that which you are dispassionate—if you persist in dispassion—you will soon find the dispassion loosening and attachment taking hold.

In fact, when the clock’s pendulum swings to the left, as it is going left you do not realize it is gathering the power to go right. Precisely in going left it is acquiring the energy to move right—this does not occur to us. And the farther it goes left, the more force it will have to go right. When it swings right, the eye sees it on the right; but those who see more deeply say, now it is preparing to go left again. In this way the mind revolves between dualities like a clock’s pendulum.

When we go on loving someone, we do not realize that we are simultaneously acquiring the power to hate them. It does not occur to us. That is why lovers so quickly become haters. The one who was your beloved yesterday—day after tomorrow the same person... Yesterday you said, if I don’t have her, life will be meaningless; I’ll die, I’ll kill myself. Yesterday, for whose absence you would have committed suicide—tomorrow, because you got her, you may feel like committing suicide.

I have heard: a psychologist once went to observe a madhouse. The chief doctor showed him a man in a cage—utterly insane, tearing his hair, banging his head, crying. The psychologist asked, What happened to him?
The doctor opened the register, the case history, and said, This man loved a girl; he couldn’t get her—so he went mad.
They went on. In another cell a young man was locked up. He too was yanking out his hair, banging his head—doing exactly what the first one was doing. The psychologist asked, And what happened to this one?
The doctor flipped through the case histories and said, This one got the girl the other one didn’t. And getting her brought him to this state. One went mad from not getting her; this one went mad from getting her.

So Mahavira cannot teach such things. He cannot teach you to go left, because he knows whoever goes left will have to go right. He cannot teach you to go right, because he knows whoever goes right will have to go left. He can teach only one thing: do not go left, do not go right—be still, stand in the middle.

This is the meaning of vitaraga: neither aversion nor hatred; neither attachment nor dispassion—not even dispassion. Therefore Mahavira is not a “vairagi” (one who cultivates dispassion). Those ascetics chasing dispassion in his name are utterly mistaken; they have nothing to do with Mahavira. The moment you become a vairagi, you begin to accumulate attachment again. Seeing that opposites are not truly opposites brings this truth out into the open.

So Mahavira says: stand still, come to a halt; look at both; go nowhere; recognize both. Then you will go nowhere; you will come into yourself.

There are three directions—a triangle. One goes toward love, one toward hate; one toward attachment, one toward dispassion—all are dualities. The one who escapes dualities comes to the third point of the triangle, where the Self abides. There is no going and coming there; there is resting. There wisdom becomes steady. Standing there we can see—or rather, the one who truly sees comes to rest. For seeing, stillness is the indispensable condition. If you want to see attachment and aversion, do not go to either side; stand still and see what attachment is, what aversion is, what forgiveness is, what anger is.

And we are either in attachment or in aversion—outside ourselves. To be in attachment and aversion means: to be outside oneself, to be elsewhere. Whether on a friend or on an enemy, our consciousness, our attention, will be somewhere else—in attachment as well as in aversion. The man who is mad to accumulate wealth will have his attention on wealth. The man who is mad to renounce wealth will also have his attention on wealth. For both, wealth remains the focal point.
And when the focal point of vision returns from all dualities and stands upon oneself, one quietly begins to see: here is renunciation, here is indulgence; I neither indulge nor renounce; I stand and watch. In such a state the door to the self opens, from where one can enter the supreme prelude to knowledge.
Let’s take one more and the whole thing will be complete. Yes, there was something about Nigod, wasn’t there, some question? What—weren’t you asking about Nigod?

Samsara is the middle, nigod is the first, moksha is the last. From nigod the soul rises and enters samsara; from samsara it rises and enters moksha. Moksha is liberation; nigod is complete non-liberation—where everything is sheer darkness, the grip is deep; that is, where there is not even the awareness that there is bondage, where bondage itself is everything. The very awareness of bondage is the beginning of freedom. The moment one knows there are chains on one’s hands, the struggle has begun. One will no longer tolerate the chains; they will have to be broken. In nigod, there isn’t even that much awareness.

Nigod means: the realm of stupefied, unconscious souls.
From that realm of stupefied souls, slowly, souls rise and come into this middle realm, where half-stupor and half-non-stupor operate; at times the mind awakens, at times it falls asleep; sometimes we appear awake, sometimes asleep; sometimes awareness comes, sometimes unawareness; sometimes we are discerning, sometimes indiscriminate. Here we oscillate between sleep and waking. Just as night is sleep and day is waking, and between the two there is the state of dream, where we are neither fully asleep nor fully awake.

Dream means: half-awake, half-asleep—awake enough that in the morning we remember we dreamt, asleep enough that the dream runs on and we do not know it is a dream; it seems real—an in-between state.
Samsara is the dream, nigod is sleep, moksha is awakening—these are the three states.

The question arose because: where do all these souls come from? Mahavira does not accept that they are created. There is no creation; souls have always been. Then from where do they come into the world? Mahavira says there is a realm of stupor, where stupefied souls exist in countless, infinite numbers. Infinite—keep this in mind. Because if it were not infinite, one day it would be exhausted. And in this cosmos there is nothing that is not infinite. In this cosmos, being infinite is indispensable. Nothing can truly be “in number.” If things were in number, then the cosmos would have a boundary; it would not be limitless. And the cosmos cannot be limited.

Nigod means: infinite souls dormant since beginningless time. From there, souls rise—one by one. The number of souls that rise constitutes samsara. Then from samsara, souls go on becoming liberated into the other realm where they attain supreme consciousness.

The question is: will there ever be a time when all souls are liberated? Never—because souls are infinite.

Now, the word “infinite” does not fit into our head, because our mind cannot conceive the infinite. We can think of larger and larger numbers, but not the infinite—because the infinite means where number itself has no meaning. We can even think “countless,” but countless is not infinite. Countless only means: whose number cannot be practically counted; we would get tired counting. If someone asks you, “How many hairs are on your head?” you say, “Countless, uncountable,” but that does not mean there is no number. It may be difficult to count, but it can be counted; there is no insurmountable obstacle. What we call “countless” can always, in principle, become “counted.”

Infinite means where number is meaningless, where however much you count, there will still remain something left to count—necessarily. Where remainder is inevitable; where nothing is ever without remainder.

So nigod is the realm of stupefied souls; samsara is the realm of half-stupefied souls; moksha is the realm of the supremely un-stupefied, fully awakened souls. And because our mind thinks only in numbers, it keeps asking: how many stupefied souls are there? “How many” is not a valid question. How many souls have been liberated? That too is not a valid question. For from beginningless time souls have been attaining liberation; infinite souls have been liberated.

With the infinite there is a curious fact: no matter how much you take out of it, what remains is exactly as much as there was. This needs a little understanding. Our ordinary arithmetic does not agree. It says: however many people there might be in this room—even suppose infinite—but if two people walk out, then there are not exactly as many left as there were before; how can that be? Two have left.

If we accept that with two leaving there is some reduction, then we are back in the realm of number, and there is no puzzle; they will keep becoming fewer and fewer; a time could come when there is zero. This is one of the great riddles of mathematics: from infinity, subtract anything and infinity still remains; nothing changes.

Therefore nigod remains exactly as it was. And it will remain exactly as it was—always. Liberated souls will keep happening every day, yet there will be no crowding in moksha; the question of crowding simply does not arise.

But our arithmetic of number finds this very hard to grasp. In non-Euclidean geometry—the new geometry that arose in contrast to Euclid—and in the new forms of higher mathematics that arose in contrast to classical arithmetic, these things can be understood; ordinarily they are not.

For example, we draw a straight line on the ground. Euclid says the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. The shortest distance forms a straight line. We can draw a straight line.

But non-Euclidean geometry—the new geometry that developed against Euclid—says a straight line does not really exist, because the earth is round. However straight a line you draw, if you extend it in both directions, in the end it will become a circle. Therefore, all straight lines are segments of a larger circle—and segments of a circle can never be truly straight.

Do you see my point? I am explaining that, in effect, a straight line does not exist. It only seems straight because our vision is limited. If we extend it far enough, ultimately it becomes a great circle. And if it can become a great circle, it is a part of that circle; and a part of a circle can’t be straight—it is inherently curved.
Therefore, no line in the world is straight. It is hard for our mind to accept that no line can be straight, that it cannot even be drawn. For as you keep extending it, in the end it will meet itself. Where will you take it? There is no straight line; all are circles—segments of circles.

Euclid, in defining a point, says: a point is that which has no length and breadth. Non-Euclidean geometry says: that which has no length and breadth cannot exist; hence there are no “points,” only tiny segments of lines.
Do you understand? A line is a segment of a large circle, and a point is a segment of a line. And every point has length and breadth, because nothing can exist without length and breadth. All have length and breadth. As long as Euclid’s view prevailed, it all seemed perfectly fine; now things have become tangled and difficult.

As for our numerical conventions: we all accept that numbers run from one to nine. No one asks why they don’t go further, or why they can’t run with fewer. It is simply tradition. Some early mind took a fancy, made a scheme of nine, and it took off. And because arithmetic arose in one place and then spread worldwide, no one questioned it.

But later thinkers appeared—Leibniz, for example; he managed with a base of three. He said, you don’t need more than three: one, two, three! After three comes: 10, 11, 12, 13! Then 20! He dismissed the rest—and solved all his mathematics with just that much!
Einstein said, why even three? Two suffice: one, two; then 10, 11, 12; then 20, 21, 22—and so on. The point is merely to count. If we stick to the old math, we say: one, two, three, four, five. If we accept Einstein’s, it’s: one, two; ten, eleven, twelve. Those “twelve” are not really five; those five are only what our arithmetic calls them. Change the bookkeeping of arithmetic and all this changes.

Our minds use number to measure everything in the cosmos. Yet the truth is that number is a purely human invention, makeshift, utilitarian. Here there is nothing whose number truly “is”; every single thing is innumerable. And if we consider the innumerable, mathematics becomes useless, because then arithmetic has no meaning. If things are innumerable—cannot be counted, are not countable—and however much you take out, that much still remains, then what meaning do addition and subtraction have? What meaning division? Multiplication? None.

If we bring the cosmos’s wholly innumerable, infinite order into view, all arithmetic collapses—because arithmetic is a makeshift convenience so we can get by with counting. And if we try to know the truth of the cosmos with that makeshift arithmetic, we land in trouble.

So Mahavira’s statement is entirely non-mathematical; it is the reverse of arithmetic. And the statements of all seekers of truth will run counter to arithmetic, because arithmetic operates within limits, and truth is limitless—therefore arithmetic goes haywire.

Thus the Upanishads also say: That Whole is such that even if you take the Whole out of It, what remains is the Whole itself—no diminishment at all. But this gives our minds a headache, because whenever we take something out, there is a lack left behind—since we have always taken from the finite. If we had ever taken from the infinite, we would have known. We have no experience of the infinite.

Therefore nigod is infinite; it never diminishes. Moksha is infinite; it never gets crowded. The samsara between them is also, in a sense, infinite—because that which joins two infinites can only be infinite. It too cannot be “in number.” How could a finite bridge join two infinites?
The finite cannot connect infinites; only an infinite can connect infinites. And then everything becomes head-spinning. On that plane, counting has no meaning.

The notion of moksha is familiar to many, but the notion of nigod is Mahavira’s own. And I hold that without the notion of nigod, the notion of moksha is meaningless; it cannot stand. For souls keep going on toward liberation—where would they be coming from?

No—how could a stupefied soul reach there? It has to pass through the paths of un-stupefying, of coming out of its numbness. When you wake from sleep you don’t wake up all at once; there is a span of drowsiness you pass through.

In the morning you may feel you’ve gotten up, but then you turn over and close your eyes again. Then the clock sounds; it seems to say, “Get up,” as if someone has spoken—so you get up again, open your eyes, and then roll over and doze once more. Between sleep and waking—however brief—there is a period of tandra, a twilight between slumber and awakening when you are neither quite awake nor quite asleep; there is a leaning toward sleep and a pull toward waking; between the two there is a tension.

From nigod no one can go straight to moksha. One has to pass through the world. How long that takes is another matter. Some take fifteen or twenty minutes, tossing on the bed before rising; some five minutes, some one minute, some one second. And even the one who seems to spring up in a single leap—that is only how it appears to us—he too has to spend some subtle, infinitesimal fraction of time on the bed after waking.

So the world may be long or short; in fewer or more lives one may be liberated. But one must pass through the world—that is the inevitable path, where the gate to liberation is.

No, no. There is no such cycle, no such cycle. Because water, steam, and the ocean are not three things. They are not three things; they are a single thing in a mechanical cycle. A mechanical cycle. No droplet can free itself from water and be outside it; the wheel keeps turning.

As far as moksha is concerned, returning from there is difficult. Only when mechanicalness breaks, when the mind becomes fully conscious—wholly conscious—can one reach moksha. From total consciousness, returning is impossible.

Yes, within the world one can go round and round—many rounds. A human being can be born a human a thousand times, repeating the same rounds, because he is asleep. If he awakens, he stops circling; he steps out of the wheel. Since moksha means being outside all cycles, one cannot go back into the cycle.

And a drop of water is in a stupor; we should say the souls there are in nigod. The souls in a drop of water are in nigod. The world of matter, one should say, is in nigod. There the cycle is complete—absolutely complete. Hence it is predictable.

We can say: heat water and it will become steam. No water has ever been seen that refuses to become steam. It has no consciousness. We can predict about water.

But prediction about a human being is difficult. It is not necessary that if you love him, he will love. Not absolutely necessary. Generally, yes; but not inevitably. Therefore man is a bit beyond prediction, because he has a little consciousness. You cannot say with certainty what he will do.

About matter you can speak with certainty; therefore a science of matter has arisen. But a science of man has not yet been fully possible. The reason is that the entire arrangement of matter is mechanical. The law is exact: heat to so much and water becomes steam; cool to so much and it becomes ice. There is no doubt—do it in Tibet, in China, in Iran, anywhere: at that point it becomes steam, at that point ice. The law is exact because the whole movement is mechanical.

But as we move higher, mechanicalness keeps breaking. Even in man it becomes very loose. You cannot say for sure what he will do, or how he will respond to what you do. You may meet someone who functions utterly beyond prediction. There are all kinds of people, and their consciousnesses are of many kinds.

In moksha, prediction ends altogether, because there consciousness is totally free, fully awake. You cannot say anything definite about it—cannot say, “It will be like this”—because there is no rule-bound, mechanical behavior there.

This is why there is difficulty with man: a complete science of man cannot be made. Generally, if you abuse someone he will be angry. But you may meet a Mahavira, and you abuse him and he stands silently, without anger. He is unpredictable. The more conscious a person becomes, the less you can say—mathematically—that “this will be the outcome.”

All of nature is a cycle. Rains come, winter comes, summer comes—the wheel turns. Rivers, waters, mountains; clouds form, then return—again the cycle runs. The lower you go, the more certain the cycle. The higher you rise, the looser the cycle. As you rise higher and higher, the cycle loosens more and more. On rising completely above, there is no cycle—only you. No pressure, no repression, no compulsion—only your being. This is the meaning of liberation, of freedom.

Non-liberation, bondage, dependence mean exactly this: bound, you go round and round the cycle; there is no choice. You press the switch and the light has to come on. You press the button and the fan has to turn. There is no option—the fan has no will, no freedom.

The journey from bondage to moksha is a journey from unconsciousness to consciousness. The more unconsciousness, the more bound the sequence; the more consciousness, the freer it becomes.